crowdsourcing

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
$16.00
Clay Shirky is one of the most insightful analysts of the internet and how it affects society. His book, "Here Comes Everybody" is an extension of his previous arguments that the internet drastically lowers transaction costs thus greatly easing group-formation and collective action, which in turn erodes the "institutional monopoly on large-scale coordination" (p. 143). Prominent themes include the mass amateurization of publishing (and how this causes big problems for traditional publishers because the one-to-many pattern - broadcasting - is being replaced by a many-to-many pattern), the end of professional filtering ("publish, then filter", "failure for free"), and how the web eliminates the technological barriers to participation, which means it's no longer the case that small things get done for 'love' (non-financial motivations) and big things for money. It's now possible to do big things for love - like writing the largest, best and most comprehensive encyclopedia in history. Also important is that the distribution of attention, participation and contribution on the web follows a power-law distribution and not the familiar normal distribution (see Shirky's original essay on this).

I very highly recommend the book; indeed, I'd say it should be required reading.
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The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation (Theory in Practice)
$39.99
I found "The Art of Community" to be rather lacking in factual information, which is not to say that it wasn't but merely that it didn't provide much in the way of supporting information. There were many anecdotal references to the Author's experiences, which though interesting were not sufficiently helpful or informative to the extent where I would feel comfortable making a business decision based on the contents of this book. Perhaps, my judgment on this is a bit harsh; however, I think O'Reilly who caters to the web development community with a wide variety of informative books, which I've used on many occasions could have done a better job here. I think there is a dearth of knowledge generally as to the specifics of the ramifications of web 2.0 aside from the anecdotal; however for now I think I'll stick to peer-reviewed psychology and marketing rags until a proper amalgamation and concentration of peer-reviewed non-technical web 2.0 information is available. I should add that I bought this book strictly speaking as a web 2.0/social media book, so please ignore some of the harshness if you are not a web 2.0/social media application designer or programmer, because that's where my review was aimed.

The Wisdom of Crowds
$15.00
As a graduate of two Universities in Michigan, Michigan State University and University of Michigan-Flint I kept asking myself, "Where are the control groups?" I thought James Surowiecki was very detailed in his descriptions, but never did I hear him talk about control groups. And I mention this early as in the very beginning a group of people individually get to within three pounds of the weight of an ox. This is supposed to show that if you want to get the right answers then amass a large group of people and just average their results. Well it worked. But did it? We don't see the Mr. Surowiecki show that this weight guessing was tried 10 times and then compare the results. If he had done that I would be inclined to agree, that, "hey, maybe there is something to this".

The author's belief, and belief is what I am saying as again, he doesn't back this up with hard evidence. He states several times in the book that by asking a large group of people an answer to a pressing problem, they will often come up with an 'average answer' that is better even than the best answer from a smaller group of experts. Hmmm, bias, prejudice, imperfect humans, yeah we are that. Our own personal environment with all the Freudian habits and vices we have picked up definitely have an affect, just look at religious beliefs.

We all are brought up with a religious background, even if that background is atheism. This religious background will have an effect on any scientist that is formalizing his/her latest theories on evolution, how the universe began and how we even got to be here. I do agree that a larger group of people would work in this case. But, both groups need to be very knowledgeable in the subject at hand. In the case of the weight of the Ox, all the people, both the smaller as well as the larger group would need to have good eyesight, as well as good spatial cognition. Both groups would have to have some idea of what a large animal like an ox should weigh. Obviously, the ox must weigh at least a 1000 pounds.

I found the bus experiment interesting and it was a college experiment. It takes a bit of intestinal fortitude to ask a stranger to give up their bus seat, especially if you are a healthy college student. Also, when someone 'takes cuts' in a line. It is often the person right behind the person who is violated with this bodily intrusion. Why don't others speak up? Why do some people sit back and let others decide?

I think letting a majority collectively make decisions is what a democracy is about. We have that. But what differs in our country then a true democracy, is what our founding fathers gave us, in their collective wisdom and that is a representative democracy. They knew that there would be issues which we as a collective whole could not possibly have the time, knowledge or desire to learn all there is about an issue. That is why we have to spend our valuable time, knowledge and our desire to learn all there is about our Representative candidates. That way as a collective body we can rest in knowing that we, as individuals did we should do to elect the best that there are to represent us.

In ending, I am going to relate something that was told to me by wisdom, that is by my elders. "There is nothing new under the sun". Every age believes it is in the modern age. We are always reaching to change things, and make things better. Once we laid copper wires in the sky, we thought we were modern and knew what our ancestors didn't know. When we retired our horses to the Kentucky Derby and brought the pride of our metals to the asphalt highways we definitely knew more than our elders!

And we do know more, with the 21st Century has started with the majority of us using the Internet. That is 'a good thing'. One last thing to ponder. Why not leaders? Why are we trying to downplay the great, the geniuses of society, and put all into one mass. We needed Franklin Delano Roosevelt and General Dwight Eisenhower. We needed Winston Churchill. Maybe that is our problem. We should be looking at the "Wisdom of Crowds" to help us determine who our next great leaders are, to cultivate the innovative geniuses that bring us the great things to the masses. There could be the answer that "The Wisdom of Crowds" could have entertained.

Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
$19.95
Condition like new. Must read for anyone who is thinking of starting any business - non-profit or for profit!